


Gate-Broken Solitudes

by Tzapporah



Series: Gate-Broken Universe [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012), Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:37:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tzapporah/pseuds/Tzapporah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack likes to go to the Antarctic to think sometimes...but it's not always completely deserted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Interrupted Solitude

**Author's Note:**

> A story originally posted on Fanfiction.net. On FF all 4 parts of this story are combined into one single posted story. Here I'm listing them as separate works. Enjoy.

Jack's trips to Antarctica had become much less frequent in the twenty years since he'd become a Guardian, but it was still his go-to place when he needed some peace and quiet. There was no doubt that life had gotten less lonely and easier in many ways for the Spirit of Winter since his induction, but he was still in what Sandy had called an "adjustment period." Or, at least that's what Jack thought the silent little man was trying to say, either way it seemed an apt description. Even twenty years of companionship wasn't long enough to overcome three hundred of being alone.

It was the equinox, when the two hemispheres of the globe were in perfect balance, but that meant that the places were few where the Winter Spirit could truly be comfortable. Nowhere was truly in Summer, which meant that nowhere was truly in Winter. The closest he was able to get was at the poles. In years gone past, he would either have toughed it out in Burgess, or he would've gone and slept off the uncomfortable heat of the transition days in Antarctica. In the last few decades, he'd spend the days at Santoff Clausen, where he could be both comfortable and distracted.

This time, however, his lone wolf tendencies reared their ugly head. He just wasn't in the mood to be around the other Guardians right now. He would've sworn up and down that there was no particular reason for his mood that day, but the other Guardians would've instantly recognized it as his "Jack lost another believer he was close to" depression. He did  _not_  want to deal with their good-natured, but ultimately aggravating attempts to comfort him. He just wanted to be alone.

He flew to his customary spot, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape, and plopped down. He idly began to contemplate starting a small blizzard, so conveniently commonplace on the barren continent, when he heard a faint voice that said something that caught him completely by surprise. "Jack!"


	2. Solitary Savior

_Wha? Where did that come from?_  Then he heard the voice again, "Stay with me!"

Surliness warred with curiosity and was thoroughly and summarily thrashed. The voice was now almost constant, almost stream-of-consciousness. Most of the words were unintelligible to him, but some words and phrases made it through. The distressed tones punctuated by things like "broken", "hold on" and probably the most wince-worthy for him, "frostbite," led him to a jagged crevasse in the ice. By this time the voice had died down to a murmur that had taken on the steady cadence of a mantra.

As he slowly made his way down the extremely narrow and jagged cleft, the words of the mantra became intelligible, but still didn't make any sense to him. "Just fix the DHD. Just dial the SGC and get back to Earth. I can do this."  _What makes her think that she's not on Earth? What the hell is a DHD? She doesn't_ sound _delirious, just desperate. What is going on down there?_

Jack knew that he was a relatively young spirit, but he doubted that  _any_  of the Guardians would've believed what he saw upon entering the ice cavern the voice was coming from. A huge metal ring dominated one side of the chamber. The ring was covered in strange symbols and adorned with a half-dozen glowing triangles. A grunt interrupting the mantra tore his gaze from the giant ring to the block of ice in the middle of the room. About a third of the ice had been chipped away to reveal a chest-high console-like device with a glowing red hemisphere in the center. Underneath, a blonde head in a military-style uniform was industriously fiddling with what looked like multicolored crystals. "GOD, WHY WON'T YOU WORK!" she yelled in frustration.

Jack saw the figure behind her move a half second before her radio crackled to life. "Carter…Carter…"

Her reaction was immediate. "Colonel!" she yelled, positively jumping off of the ice to the prone figure. "Sir?"

"I'm usually the first one up." said the weak male voice of the prone figure.

She choked on a half-sob. "You're bleeding internally."  _That_  was definitely not good. "I don't know how badly. Your broken leg may already be frostbitten." That explained part of what Jack had heard on his way here. "I can't tell. I've been trying to warm it up with the last of our cooking sterno, but that's about had it."

The man paused a bit before he replied. "…What's the bad news? Help me up."

Her voice took on a firmer tone. "No, Sir, you need to heal. That's an order."

"I give the orders around here." The man said in a faintly indignant tone.

She gave a small laugh and said, "Not Doctor's orders." She took a pan of water clearly melted from snow off of a small camp-cooker next to her and held it up to the man's lips. "I want you to drink as much of this as you can. Once the sterno dies, we won't be able to thaw any more. I should have gotten you out of here by now, I'm sorry."

"You will, you will." Said the man reassuringly.

Her voice took on a slightly hysterical tone. "I've been working on the control panel for the last twelve hours! It just…I don't know why it won't work. It should  _work_! I…I'm missing something."

"—Captain," the man cut her off.

"Sir?"

"It's time to go to plan B."

"What would plan B be?" she replied warily.

"You take the rest of the supplies and climb out of here." She began to shake her head. "Take your chances up on the planet, head towards daylight."

"If I can't get that Stargate to work, we will BOTH go." She firmly contradicted.

Rather than expend the energy in arguing with the determined woman he merely said, "Right…I'll race you. Alright Captain, make it work."

"Yes Sir."

A companionable silence fell between the two after that. The woman went back to work on the console-thing, and the man drifted in and out of consciousness. There was little Jack could do here, especially since it was clear that neither of these two could see him. He did, however, check the man's leg and was glad to see that he did  _not_  yet have frostbite, no doubt due to the woman's desperate ministrations.

_Hmm…if they can't do whatever they're trying to do with that big ring thing, she's going to try to climb out of here. That hole I came down is_ not _climber-friendly and_ that _is something I can change._  With a newfound purpose, Jack went back to the narrow path he'd descended and went to work.

* * *

Jack was proud of what he'd managed to do. The jagged, narrow crevasse that would've ripped a normal-sized person to shreds was now a gentle tube with convenient handholds for climbing. He'd even gone so far as to use his power to carve out a set of arrows pointing to the entrance of the newly-constructed pathway. There was no way these two had made it out here without anyone knowing they were here. There was also no way Jack could figure that any rescuers would be able to find them without some sort of indicator. All in all, Jack was proud of his few hours' work and descended back down to the cavern.

The woman, Carter, was talking herself through what she was doing. "Okay, energy converger intact…Oh God – reset!" Her face positively lit up. "Reset! Why didn't I think? Colonel, I'm going to interrupt the power. I'm going to shut it all off and turn it on again!" She looked to the prone man with her news. A slight nod was all the response she received.

Turning back to the console-thing to fiddle a bit more with the crystals, she muttered, "Okay…this better work." The lights on the ring and at the center of the console went out, followed by her determinedly planting her knife in the ice next to her. "Okay, okay…" she said as she started to push buttons in front of her.

The triangles on the ring began to light up as she depressed the buttons. By the third one, the room started to shake. Jack was worried that the shaking might just bring the rest of the room down on them and rushed to frostily reinforce what he could in the chamber. As such, he only saw her press the hemisphere in the middle out of the corner of his eye.

She was looking pleadingly at the gate, panting "Work….work…" when the shaking abruptly stopped; leaving the circle and console in the exact state they'd been in when Jack had first arrived. An inarticulate cry of frustration erupted from deep within her chest.

She dejectedly made her way over to the prone man, who looked up at her and said, "I guess it didn't work."

"I'm sorry," she replied mournfully.

"Not your fault."

"I don't understand why it won't work!"

"Captain, plan B, go." He ordered.

"No, Sir…" she vehemently replied.

"—Sam, I'm dying. Follow my order…please"

"Sir…" She was barely able to stop herself from crying.

"Please." He said quietly.

Her mouth firmed. "Yes Sir!" she said as she quickly made preparations for her climb. Jack was glad to see her mild pleasure at finding the results of his few hours' labor. He decided to follow her up the tunnel and reinforce as they went.

She kept up a running dialogue over the radio with the man down in the cavern. Nothing of consequence was exchanged, but there was some annoyed bitching about someone named "Kinsey." After they were done with him, there was some good-natured complaining about the foibles of a man named "Daniel." Jack knew that she was just trying to keep the man conscious, but the conversation made him chuckle a few times. He really hoped that whatever rescue was coming for these two would come soon. He liked them.

It was slow-going, and so it was when she was only about two-thirds of the way up that she said, "Colonel, I can't see the surface yet. It looks like it just keeps going up."

"Sam…" the man's voice crackled over her radio.

"Yes Sir?" she asked with obvious trepidation.

"It was an honor serving with you."

Jack almost choked at the look of grief on her face, but the fleeting expression was replaced with determination as she said, "Yes Sir," and kept climbing.

The climb continued in silence. Jack was used to silence, but this silence's grief-filled overtone was one of the worst kinds. Just as she reached the lip of the tunnel, she broke the silence with, "Colonel, I'm almost there. I'm gonna try and bring back help, Sir. I want you to hold that thought."

She pulled herself out of the tunnel and looked around. Her face fell at the sight that greeted her. She had no way of knowing that she was less than 50 miles away from the Antarctic outpost, and Jack had no way of telling her. She closed her eyes in resignation and activated her radio. "Colonel? It's an ice planet. That's all there is as far as the eye can see. No chance."

She turned around to reenter the tunnel and yelled, "Colonel! I'm coming down!" She recklessly began to climb back down and quickly lost her footing. Jack reacted quickly and flew ahead of her to help smooth out the bumps of the handholds he'd created before. At least he could save her from some injury.

When she reached the bottom, she crawled over to nestle next to the prone man. "Colonel…Colonel…"

"Sara…"

She barely hesitated at the misnomer, "I'm here, Jack."

That was the first time since when he'd first heard her that she'd said that name.  _So this guy has the same name as me, huh? Well that explains that._

"Cold, so cold…" the man stammered out.

"I know. It's alright. You can sleep now." She said soothingly, "It was an honor serving with you too, Colonel."

Jack watched the pair for another few minutes. "I haven't even known you for a day, but I feel honored, too." He floated away and out of the cavern. He had a lot to think about.

* * *

Jack wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it wasn't long before he heard the thump-thump-thump of a helicopter. His head shot up.  _Please tell me they're here for Sam and Jack down there._  He rapidly flew in the direction of the sound.

He was ecstatic to see a rescue helicopter making a beeline for where the two were buried under the ice. The only problem with that was that it was a good hundred yards from the entrance to the cavern.

"Oh god, they're not going to get to them in time. What can I do?" He looked around desperately for an answer. The arrows he'd already created were on the other side of a small rise, and unless the helicopter moved closer in that direction, they were going to completely miss it.

A sudden gust of wind blasted against the back of his head. He'd been friends with the wind long enough to get the message. "Of course! C'mon wind, we're going to help them! Blow that helicopter far enough to see the marker!"

The wind responded with a perfectly calibrated gust. The helicopter pilot made his adjustments to make up for the sudden change and Jack heard one of the passengers yell. "Look, down there! There's a cave entrance!"

The chopper set down twenty feet from the tunnel entrance and it took less than a minute for one of the rescue workers to don a safety harness, tie it to the vehicle, and dive down the hole.

Jack followed him down to see him rapidly and expertly ministering to the two unconscious figures. After he was finished with his first-aid and assessment, he spoke into his own radio. "They're both alive. The Colonel has some injuries, but they'll both make it."

Relief flooded through Jack at those words. They were going to be alright. He hadn't watched them die. They were going to keep on living their lives at least partly due to him.

He stuck around long enough to see them accompanied by friendly faces onto the helicopter and airlifted out.

He'd come down here to be alone and sulk, and he'd ended up saving the lives of two people. All in all, he'd count this as a very good day. He'd leave the mystery of the giant ring and just  _how_  those two had gotten there for another day. Today he'd just be content.


End file.
